Five tips to get your sense of humour back

1)   Comedy is about the surprise. You think the story is going one away and then it goes another. The joke comes when somebody acts differently than they were supposed to.  When I worked at The Second City theatre teaching improvisation to corporate clients they found if they interrupted the ‘same old way’ of reacting they found new solutions.

2)   Get physical. Teaching improvisation for years we found if improvisers did something physical it freed up the creative side of the brain to come up ideas. So while you’re walking, dancing, or playing ping pong it frees up the old noodle to come up with better answers.

3)   Take your lunch hour. I know when I die I will be the one person who doesn’t lose their appetite. My Dad was dying and I asked him if he wanted anything and he said he could smell my Mom’s cooking. When I came back in from the kitchen he asked where the food was and I said “She says you can’t have any it’s for the funeral.”  Eat your lunch!

4)   Doubt your Doubt. Sometimes my toxic troll of shame gets up ahead of me in the morning. It’s sitting at the end of the bed eating bon bons saying great you slept in, now we can’t exercise.  Doubt plays under neat us and if we can say to it “Thank you for sharing but I am not going to listen you today  (Of course say it in your head otherwise people might

5)   Just go to sleep. I don’t have good thoughts after 8 pm at night. In fact at that time my brain starts to turn to mush. I look at the world very bleakly so why do I think if I sit up and think about my neurosis du jour its going to get better? I don’t know but lately I have found that if you got to sleep it will look better in the morning. And even if doesn’t you can have a good cup of coffee.

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